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Editors' notes

This document has been included as part of our history of Thomas's
biography
before his work on The Polish Peasant in Europe and America. The
Washington Post also covered this speech: see "Wives
'Like House Dogs.'

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Chicago Tribune

RACE WEAKER; SCORES WOMEN
———
Prof. William I. Thomas Says Americans Deteriorate.
———
"DRESS" IS FIRST IN MINDS
———
Also Takes Rap at Man for Avoiding Real Social Life.

William I. Thomas, associate professor of sociology, does
not have a high opinion of the present state of American society. Prof. Thomas
addressed the members of the Chicago Woman’s club yesterday afternoon on "The
Present Condition and Destiny of the Family," and in the course of his paper
made several statements which are decidedly discouraging to any feeling of
national pride that may have been troubling us.

Briefly Prof. Thomas believes that:

The insane and habitual criminal classes in America are increasing more
rapidly than the normal population; in the more intelligent classes the
birth rate is lower than the death rate.

This, which means rapid racial deterioration, makes the question of white
or yellow supremacy in the near future a grave one.

There are few middle class American families whose dress and mode of
living do not represent larger bank accounts than they possess.

Women of the upper classes are giving themselves over to personal
ornamentation, struggles for social preeminence, and "the solemn sacrament
of bridge whist." Child bearing is left largely to the poorer classes.

Man, as yet is only partially socialized. He has not place in the picture
of the madonna because he does not form a part of the real society.

The normal child of 5 can understand anything from the theory of
evolution to the "Hamlet" of Shakespeare. Through uneducated nurses and "unideaed"
mothers his life is misspent.

———

Sees Grave Condition.

"One of the gravest conditions confronting white
civilization," said Prof. Thomas, "is the fact that the insane, the idiotic and
mentally defective, the diseased from birth or from excess, and the habitual
criminal are increasing at a more rapid rate than the normal population, and in
the more intelligent classes the birth rate is actually lower than the death
rate.

"When we consider the question of white or yellow
supremacy is a question of the future, I think we shall agree that it is time to
give marriage a scientific status.

"As from the child, give me his home training and I don’t
care who makes up the school curricula. At 6 the child can understand anything.
On of our great universities has provided a tutorial system in which the tutor
spends his whole time with the pupil, trying to make up for his misspent
childhood. We need more of that.

"But we must go farther back than the child. Our women of
the better classes are extremely likely to leave the function of child bearing
to those who are poorer.

———

How Women Spend Time

"If the society woman who is not at home to your ring were
searched out, where would she be found, think you? At the Art institute, at the
libraries, or at the Chicago Woman’s club? No. You would find her at the
department stores, at the apothecaries’ at the massage parlors, at the solemn
sacrament of bridge whist.

"The women of today, here in America, are rushing into an
intemperate zone, and the society of today hold a damning brief against them.

Monogamy, said the speaker, is a system under which many
abuse may occur, and many individuals be injured. The divorce evil is due to the
content, not the framework, of the marriage system.

"The woman and child constitute the real society," Prof.
Thomas concluded. "Man as yet is only partially socialized. He has used woman as
a lay figure on which to hang his wealth, but never has he really associated
with her. Man has no place in the picture of the madonna, because he does not
belong there.

"It my own feeling, the madonna will be superseded by a
painting by Lucy Fitch Perkins, entitled ‘Dance to Your Daddy, My Little Babbie!’
Here a mother and child are waiting on the sands for the father —the belated
member of the perfect human trinity."

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